


Poppypaw's Mistake

by TheJaguar (Spiderboat)



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Drowning, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-19
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-09 13:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1984719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiderboat/pseuds/TheJaguar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Young cats are prone to folly. Some more so than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poppypaw's Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Ailuronymy Writing Challenge! You can find out more at http://ailuronymy.tumblr.com

It was a dark and stormy night.

Thunder rumbled in the sky, and flashes of lightning blinded the young tomcat occasionally. This whole venture was folly, but Poppypaw knew that Anttail needed burdock root badly, and since she was too busy tending to old Waxtail, Poppypaw felt that he could seize the moment to sneak out of camp.

The rain poured down and the wind screeched in his ears, but Poppypaw kept pushing forward. He tried to sniff the air to smell for burdock, but he kept sucking water into his nostrils, making him cough and gasp. His fur was soaked completely through, and he was shivering and hacking. But there was no way that he was going back to camp just for Anttail to scold him for being disobedient again. Couldn't she see that sometimes rules were just supposed to be broken? He was taking this risk for the Clan!

Water pooled at his paws, and at first, Poppypaw was worried that the forest had begun to flood, but then he realized that he had simply reached the border of RiverClan territory. With a nervous gulp, he scanned the surrounding area for ThunderClan warriors. He knew that as a medicine cat, he should have been allowed to pass, but the battles for Sunningrocks had been vicious as of late. It would have been to their advantage to steal the medicine cat apprentice of their opposing Clan.

Shaking his fur in a futile effort to dry it, Poppypaw jumped into the water. He instantly found this was a mistake. The river was much higher than he'd ever seen it before, and it moved faster and harder. He flailed his legs around, but he kept getting knocked under by waves. He took huge, desperate gasps of air. “Help!” he cried. “Help me! I'm drowning! Help!”

His cries were met with silence and rushing water, and Poppypaw's heart sank. _I'm going to die!_ he thought anxiously. 

“Poppypaw, hold on!”

A wave overtook him as he heard the words, and he was too tired to even process who the voice belonged to. He heard a splash, and then felt teeth grip the scruff of his neck. With a heave, he was being pulled to the edge of the river, and he coughed up a huge amount of water as he felt earth under his belly. “Wh-where am I?” he sputtered.

“RiverClan. You're safe. Stay with me, Poppypaw.”

A female voice. He knew that voice. “Anttail?”

“Yes, it's me,” she told him, pressing her paws down on his belly. He coughed up more water, shivering from the cold. “That should be the last of it.”

Thunder growled overhead. Poppypaw shook and scrambled to his feet. “Y-you saved me, but how did you...?”

“I asked for you back at camp,” the small black cat explained, blinking her yellow eyes slowly. “I told you to get water for Waxtail, but when you didn't give me a snarky remark, I knew you weren't in camp. And I know how much you want to show off so I knew you'd be looking for burdock root.” She lashed her tail anxiously. “It's lucky I didn't find you in ThunderClan. They might have kidnapped us both.”

This wasn't like Anttail's usual scolding. Usually, she would lose her temper and yell at him, which made him feel justified in defying her. But this time, she was simply explaining how well she knew him, and what he had done wrong. He felt, for the first time, guilty for disobeying her.

“I'm sorry,” he said, so quietly that Anttail almost didn't hear him. “I'm really sorry. I was a fool. I won't ever do anything like this again.” He blinked rain out of his eyes. “Please don't send me away. Being a medicine cat is all I know.”

Anttail blinked slowly and then touched her nose to his forehead. “You're not going anywhere.” She pulled away and turned towards RiverClan. “Let's go home and dry off, and make sure you didn't catch something in this weather, yeah?”

Poppypaw nodded, following in her pawprints.


End file.
